Italian flans flocked to watch the men's final of the Australian Open tennis championships, which culminated in Jannik Sinner becoming the country’s first male grand slam champion since 1976.
Warner Bros. Discovery-owned Eurosport Italy has now revealed that its coverage of Sinner’s victory in the final against Daniil Medvedev was “watched by the biggest ever audience in Italy for any single sports broadcast during Eurosport’s 34-year history.”
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The culmination of the tournament from Melbourne secured a 17% audience share in Italy, and a rise in TV viewers of 313%, unsurprising given Sinner’s participation.
Eurosport holds Australian Open rights throughout Europe through a deal unveiled in September 2021, running through the 2031 edition.
As well as this increase in linear viewership, there was a rise of 89% in streaming subscribers to the discovery+ over-the-top platform run by WBD (which also covered the final in Italy).
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Overall, the WBD Sports streaming platforms that covered the five-set match in Italy – discovery+ and the Eurosport App – secured a 30% rise in unique viewers.
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By GlobalDataMeanwhile, Eurosport.com's local-language sites across Europe reported a 61% rise in unique visitors during the tournament, with the increase in Italy being one of 247%.
In terms of linear TV audiences for the tournament across Europe, meanwhile, there was a 24% increase across the continent for viewership across the Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2 channels.
WBD had already unveiled record digital audiences for its coverage of the tournament’s first week.
Through Eurosport, WBD also holds European rights to the year’s next grand slam, the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris in late May and early June.
In terms of coverage of the Australian Open’s men’s and women’s finals, meanwhile, domestic broadcast rightsholder Nine Entertainment achieved a reach of 4.77 million (men’s) and 3.26 million (women’s) for those matches.
The women’s final saw Aryna Sabalenka secure back-to-back titles with a victory against first-time grand slam finalist Qinwen Zheng.
Nine Network’s coverage of this year's tournament attracted a total of 10.1 million viewers throughout the two weeks, and on social media the competition had a 1108% rise in mentions, with over 1.5 million so far.
Nine took over coverage rights for the Australian Open in 2020, with its coverage deal having now been extended through the 2029 edition.
